At Home and Abroad

2025 has seen the release of his fourth studio album as well as the documentary film ‘Focla ar Chanbhás’ or ‘Words on Canvas’ directed by Paddy Hayes. The film gets its world premiere at Chicago Irish Film Festival and will then feature at Capital Film Festival in Washington DC before closing Craicfest in New York and moving back to be seen in Ireland, the UK and Europe. Four years after the breakthrough success of his debut album Beginner's Guide to Bravery, Dundalk songwriter, musician, and composer, David Keenan, is at a crossroads. After touring extensively and building a reputation as one of Ireland’s leading live performers, he returns to the studio to record new music. “Anger is easy to portray, it’s the hurt that’s hard”, he says, as we explore David's wordsmithing over the course of 500 days. This is a portrait of one artist as a young man, which in turn is a portrait of every musical artist as they endeavour to stand out in a world of “algorithm and blues”, and remain authentically and powerfully true to themselves’. David has just released a new single "Amelioration". David says “It sheds light on the difficulties of living or sharing space with another person,” he says. “It touches on the realities of drug and alcohol use and the mental side effects on a morning after where everything feels jarring and heightened.”